16 Tom Siwings Back Parlour. 



a sight much more, it being a wonderful display of science, 

 courage, and endurance, without any brutality. The 

 slighter man tried wrestling with Grant, and got the worst 

 of it ; and afterwards, about the sixth or seventh round, 

 by sheer science and timing the blow, knocked Grant clean 

 off his legs. Two things only distressed me : one was the 

 broken-hearted look of the man who lost, when he came to 

 himself ; though I saw him eating some bread and meat 

 within half an hour, and surrounded by a number of gentle- 

 men who cheered him up, and told him that he had done 

 his best, and that they would be his friends ; and the other 

 was the hideous blasphemy of some of the lower grade of 

 prize-fighters, who got a lift down for nothing for some 

 service which they rendered. As regarded the arrange- 

 ments, an inner ring ticket secured as comfortable a place 

 as one would find in a cricket ground ; but if for no other 

 reason than the outrageous language and blasphemy, which 

 were twenty thousand times worse than I ever heard in a 

 London crowd — even an execution crowd, — the abolition of 

 the Bing was a necessity. I saw one rufiian kneel down and 

 tear the grass with his hands like a wild beast, apparently 

 to assist him in his blasphemy. Coming back, there was a 

 scramble for places, and, to my horror, 1 found myself, 

 with the exception of two officers, in a carriage full of the 

 roughs of the King, and I suppose that amongst the whole 

 lot there was not one who could read or "svTite. One inci- 

 dent did amuse me, which was a question asked, not un- 

 civilly, by one of them, of a gentleman, who, speaking about 

 a well-known prize-fighter, remarked that he got into 

 trouble about a crim. con. " Beg your pardon, sir," asked one 

 of the prize-fighters, " Who did crlm. con. fight ? " Possibly 

 the question was excusable, as a certain Mr. Con Parker 

 was backed to fight Tass Parker at that very time. 



I suppose, if the truth was really told, the Ping once had 



